Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 37: Wennberg’s OT winner staves off Panthers rally in high-scoring Game 3

Scott Maxwell
Scott Maxwell(scotmaxw)
New York Rangers players
Credit: © Sam Navarro

After splitting the first two games of the Eastern Conference Final at Madison Square Garden, the New York Rangers and Florida Panthers now take the series to Sunrise. Florida managed to split the games in New York, so would they be able to throw the hammer down now that they have home-ice advantage, or would the Rangers do the same thing on their turf?

The Panthers certainly took advantage of home ice right away. They got an early power play, and only 2:50 into the game, Sam Reinhart drove to the net and buried the game’s opening goal.

The Panthers held that lead for about five minutes before the Rangers rallied in quick succession. First, Vincent Trocheck sprung Alexis Lafreniere on a breakaway, and he buried it on the backhand to tie the game.

And then 25 seconds later, Braden Schneider threw the puck on net, and Barclay Goodrow tipped it past Sergei Bobrovsky to give the Rangers the lead.

However, the Panthers got the game tied again before the end of the first period. They were on another power play with just over five minutes left in the period, Carter Verhaeghe intercepted the puck and set up Reinhart at the side of the doorstep, and as Reinhart went to make the pass to an open Aleksander Barkov, it deflected off of Jacob Trouba‘s skate and in the net for his second of the night to tie it.

Most of the second period went without any crazy action, but as it got to the final five minutes of the frame, Lafreniere gave the Rangers the lead again with an end-to-end rush that ended with a nice toe-drag around Dmitry Kulikov and beating Bobrovsky on the backhand yet again to make it 3-2 Rangers with his second of the game.

But, the Rangers looked like they might be getting themselves into trouble late in the second when Trouba took two penalties, including this questionable elbow on Evan Rodrigues, to give the Panthers a four-minute power play. Considering that both goals by Florida were on the power play, this didn’t seem like good news for New York.

But it couldn’t have gone any better for the Rangers. Not only did they kill the full penalty, they also set the tone for the PK by scoring a short handed goal in the first minute of it courtesy of Goodrow, who became the third player with two goals in the game.

Now it was the Panthers that looked to be in trouble, but even though they didn’t score on the lengthy power play, they didn’t let it kill their momentum. Just after the five minute mark in the third, Verhaeghe threw the puck at the net, with Barkov deflecting it past Igor Shesterkin to make it a one-goal game.

And then not even two minutes later, Gustav Forsling jumped up from the point with the puck and sniped it home to tie the game. The Panthers pressed for the rest of the period, finishing the frame with a 21-4 advantage in scoring chances, but New York weathered the storm and we needed overtime.

The Panthers might be haunted by the third period and the chances they could have buried to win it then, because unfortunately for them, the Rangers were the team to bury the game-winner. Like we’ve seen a couple times already, it was just the simple play of Ryan Lindgren getting the puck to the net, and Alex Wennberg being in front to deflect it for the win. There was a review to see if the puck hit Wennberg’s hand, but it was a good goal.

The Rangers take the game by a score of 5-4 in overtime, and with that also take a 2-1 series lead. There was a plethora of multi-point games, highlighted by the two-goal games from Reinhart, Lafreniere and Goodrow, but they all failed to complete the hat trick.

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